How do I teach myself the Byzantine/Medieval Greek language, i.e., around the 9th century?

Hm. Noone teaches Byzantine Greek as something distinct from Ancient Greek. That’s because for most purposes, it isn’t distinct.

I’m going to go through a potted history of Byzantine Greek for others who might stumble on this question.

There are three registers of Mediaeval Greek to consider; I’ll use Mediaeval to include Greek under Latin rule.

  • The vernacular doesn’t show up much at all; nothing systematic before the 14th century. There is exceptionally a vernacular corpus from the 9th century, the Category:Bulgarian Greek inscriptions. You don’t need Modern Greek to read them.
  • Low literary Greek was an officialese Koine, with occasional hints of vernacular developments, and lots of Latinisms.
  • High literary Greek was Atticist: it was an attempt to write in the Attic of the ancients, with varying degrees of over-enthusiasm.

If you’re going to work with Mediaeval or Byzantine Greek, you do the following:

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